


Rough Around the Edges

by SilentWaves



Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mutual Pining, but it's not a big part of it, it's more general than shippy tbh, mostly characterization practice whoops, they don't really get together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentWaves/pseuds/SilentWaves
Summary: Yuzuriha isn't quite used to her new haircut. Taiju doesn't like seeing Yuzuriha sad.
Relationships: Ishigami Senkuu & Ogawa Yuzuriha & Ooki Taiju, Ogawa Yuzuriha/Ooki Taiju
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	Rough Around the Edges

**Author's Note:**

> woot! First Dr. STONE fanfiction and hopefully one of more to come?
> 
> Anyways, I love these two a lot, and debated _heavily_ whether or not I wanted to have them get together, since this takes place during canon, and I don't think it's very in-character Taiju to break the promise to tell her after they succeed so *shrugs*.
> 
> Um, but yeah, I love these characters a lot and mostly used this as characterization practice. 2k words of them being uneventfully cute, basically.

“I miss him already!” Taiju says to Yuzuriha, wiping the remaining tears from his face. “We can’t live without him! He’s the brain of the team—er—not that you’re dumb, or anything, I only meant—” 

Yuzuriha cuts him off with a laugh, “I know what you mean. He’s the brain, you’re the muscle, and I’m the one who gets held hostage.” She means it as a joke, but thinking of her near-death and the sacrifice Senku had to make in order to prevent it… well… it wasn’t a pleasant memory.

“…Yuzuriha?” Taiju speaks with the gentlest tone he’s capable of making. “You’re alive. And I’m happy about that. Sure, Senku could have sacrificed you for the sake of the world. But… you’re _our_ world.” He flushes. “That came out weird! I meant! That! Because we’re best friends!”

“You’re right, Taiju.” Yuzuriha smiles. “You and Senku are my world, too.”

“But that means you’re not allowed to be self-sacrificial anymore,” Taiju turns around, almost hoping to see his other friend’s bright green-and-white hair. “Senku is going to find a way to save everyone, so you won’t need to worry, ok?”

Yuzuriha nods, her bangs falling to cover her slightly-watery eyes. “I hope Tsukasa accepts us. Whatever Senku needs us for, he probably wants us to integrate well with the Kingdom of Might.”

Taiju agrees, then points at the nearby tall structure. “Do you think that’s where he’s setting up base?”

“I see a campfire. And… a pile of petrified bodies?”

“At least we know that the guy works fast.”

“You’re not worried, right?”

“No reason to be. Why?”

Yuzuriha smiles at his simple honestly. “No reason,” she repeats. “That’s true enough.” She sheds a tear.

“Woah! Yuzuriha! Why are you crying?” Taiju panics. “Did I hurt you? Are you upset? Do you want a hug? Is—”

“Shh!” Yuzuriha gently shushes Taiju. “They’ll hear you. We need to go in crying, because we just ‘lost our friend’. We’re begging them to take us in because we have nowhere else to go.”

“…Oh.” Taiju calms down, looking at his feet in embarrassment. They wait a few minutes to listen for people who might have heard him, but apparently nobody with superhuman hearing had been revived yet. Taiju blinks. “I don’t know how to force myself to cry.”

“That’s easy!” Yuzuriha says, tears streaming easily down her cheeks now. “Just think of a painful moment, and scrunch up you face like this—” she scrunches together her facial features “—and then pretend to be more emotional than you really are!”

Taiju immediately bursts into a mess of snot and tears, because he’s an oaf with a lot of feelings.

Yuzuriha manages to stifle a giggle. “Alright. Now we just have to hold our breaths for a bit to get our faces all red, and we’ll be almost good to go!”

They begin walking to the camp. Taiju holds his breath a lot longer than Yuzuriha, though that was to be expected with his insane stamina. 

“Alright. I see them!” Yuzuriha says. “Let’s wipe our faces so we’re not too obvious, and we’ll crunch some leaves so they don’t think we’re trying to sneak up on them.”

Taiju nods, and begins doing exactly that, still holding his breath and not looking the slightest bit tired.

When they enter the camp, it was Tsukasa himself who greets them. He gives them a once over, and either he’s not very good at spotting actors or he just doesn’t care that they could potentially betray him, but they’re immediately accepted. 

The first day they were there, they were greeted by warrior-like companions and shattered statues.

By the first week, Yuzuriha had began to sneak away to collect the pieces, with Taiju acting as her lookout.

By the first month, Yuzurih had finished her first statue, lining it up in the corner and covered by curtains made of the newly-acquired pelt.

Taiju is confident by this point that they’ve set up a comfortable-enough rhythm. He would do his best to ensure everyone didn’t bother Yuzuriha while she was ‘working on clothes’, while Yuzuriha slaved away at piecing together the most complicated possible 3D puzzles to exist.

However, he began to notice that Yuzuriha easily got distracted. She was obviously working very diligently, and she was definitely not slacking in the least, but he noticed that she tugs on the ends of her now-shorter hair a lot, which wasn’t a habit she had before.

“Yuzuriha?” Taiju asks one day. “Is something wrong?”

“Hmm?” Yuzuriha looks confused. “The secret project is going fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“Ah, I don’t doubt that, since you’re so skilled at crafts!” Taiju clarifies. “It’s just that you’ve started… hmm… well, is there something wrong with your hair?”

Personally, Taiju thought that he hair really suited her, though he’d say the same about any hair style or length. Yuzuriha was, honestly, possibly the closest a person could come to perfection, and Taiju wouldn’t hesitate to admit that he noticed it.

“Well,” Yuzuriha didn’t keep secrets from her closest friends, and she wasn’t going to start now, even if it embarrassed her. “This will sound incredibly vain of me… But I’m not used to it being so short. I wasn’t lying when I said that it’s easier to wash, but…” she trails off.

“I don’t think that’s vain!” Taiju exclaims. “Like, I don’t think there’s a problem with taking care of your looks! It means that you see yourself as someone worth taking care of!” 

He shuffles his feet, which is a bit of an odd image considering his build, but he’s a little embarrassed and not quite used to complimenting Yuzuriha when it’s just the two of them. If there was a tree there, it would have felt like… 

Taiju shakes his head. There was no use thinking of that now. They made a promise that this wouldn’t come up until after they succeeded in saving humanity, and there’s no point getting too distracted by a future when the present is already so dangerous.

“Anyways!” Taiju continues. “For what it’s worth, I think your hair is very nice! Really, you look nice no matter how you look!” Taiju isn’t the most eloquent, but his words come from a place of earnest affection. Yuzuriha smiles, because she knows this.

“Thank you, Taiju.” She says, though Taiju notices that her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes like it usually does. 

The sun began to set, and they had to part ways so that Yuzuriha could make the most of the nighttime to complete her work.

Taiju, however, spends his night of patrol thinking about how to get Yuzuriha’s smile back.

* * *

Taiju returns late one night, when the traps had caught more animals than usual and Tsukasa was more preoccupied with depetrifying rather than hunting. 

He was quietly lugging a few animal corpses behind him when he overheard a conversation between some of the others in the camp. 

Minami was not-so-quietly fawning over Tsukasa’s courage and strength to her bunkmates, and Taiju didn’t want to disturb them, so he did his best to walk by without making any sound.

“So like, I know we don’t have any hairbrushes here, but I think I pulled it off alright?” Minami says to Nikki. “But I’m just happy to be alive right now, more than anything. Oh yeah, where do you think he got that depetrification solution from? From what I know, he didn’t pay that much attention to schoolwork since he was so busy with fighting.”

“Maybe someone else found it?” Nikki suggests. “And yeah, I gave up on keeping my hair neat, so I decided to braid it.”

_Braiding?_ Taiju pauses to consider it. Nikki’s hair was a bit longer than Yuzuriha’s was, but wasn’t it also possible to braid it in small bits instead of the whole thing? _Hmm, but Yuzuriha’s never worn dreads, and there’s nobody here who would know how to do them well._ Maybe if there’s only one or two small braids?

As Taiju continues to ponder the potential hairstyles he could help Yuzuriha with, not realizing that he was nowhere near handy enough to do something even as simple as braiding (handmanship was Yuzuriha’s area of expertise, after all), he begins to walk to the food storage place.

“I don’t think anyone here has the capability to create a formula that complicated. Who would have known that bat dung would have so many uses?” Minami points out. “Ugh, that would have made _such_ a good article! If only I had some paper or a camera…”

“It’s good to be here though, right? Since we’re back in the stone ages and all, isn’t sticking with the physically strongest group the best way to go?” Nikki tugs out the makeshift hair bands to prepare for sleep.

Minami sighs, “Yeah, though I do sometimes miss the conveniences of our modern day society… Oh! Don’t tell anyone else I said that though, I think I’d much rather be alive without a camera, then dead with!” She laughs.

“Yeah, I totally get you!” Nikki joins in.

By now, Taiju had walked far enough that even their enthusiastic tones didn’t carry far enough, though Ukyo would probably be able to hear their discussion. 

Before going to his bunk, Taiju grabs a few vines from the surrounding forest, trying to recall if Senku had ever mentioned anything about touching unknown plants (he hasn’t, and Taiju doesn’t plan on eating any berries or mushrooms, so he’s pretty sure he’ll be safe). 

Once he’s back in his ‘bed’, which is a bit generous of a label, though Taiju isn’t one to complain about anything, he begins to practice with the vines.

The problem is: he doesn’t know how to braid. He’s seen Yuzuriha do it many times, but there was a lot of criss-crossing, and a lot of tightening but also loosening? He’s sure it isn’t actually complicated at all, and he won’t deny that he isn’t exactly an expert in all things arts and crafts, but he is having… just a little bit of trouble.

He tries twisting it to no avail, and then knotting it to only get a tangled mess, and then, after trying a messy combination of the two, he tied the vines together in a way that wasn’t anywhere near a braid, but basically did the same job.

He nods at his work, resolving to maybe ask Yuzuriha about it the next day, and then asking if she’d like any braids for herself.

The next morning, Taiju approaches Yuzuriha with the subject after her breakfast.

“I used to try the french and dutch braids, though you wouldn’t be able to do a full one with this length.” Yuzuriha explains, tugging at the end of her hair. “What brought this on?”

“Well, I mean, maybe it’s the sudden change that’s making you uncomfortable?” Taiju rushes out an explanation, not wanting to sound invasive or condescending, but also wanting to imply that he’s available for help if Yuzuriha wants it. “That is, maybe styling it in a way that feels familiar might help?”

“Well, I don’t really wear braids all that much anyways, but I can still teach you how to do it!”

“There’s also shears nearby, if you ever want to cut off the uneven bits? Not that you need to, obviously, you could go bald and you’d still be—er, that is—not that I _want_ you to go bald, but—”

Yuzuriha cuts him off with a laugh. “You know what, Taiju? I think you might be onto something here! Maybe I’ll like this better when I make it my own, right? And with the whole petrification and then de-petrification thing, well, I guess it’s good to update my looks to fit the situation?” She grabs the shears from her worktable. “Here! There’s no pressure or anything, just hack away anywhere that doesn’t quite look right!”

“Er—are you sure?” Taiju looks at the shears nervously. “Maybe you should ask someone like Hyouga—you know, since he uses a spear—or Minami! They probably would do a better job than I would!”

“But they’re not Taiju, right?” Yuzuriha smiles. “If I’m going to mark a change in my life, I’d rather it be from someone who has known me long enough to understand!”

Taiju flushes a dark red, and mutters out a few incoherent sentences before thanking her.

He shakily lowers his hand to the nape of her neck, and carefully trims away any loose tuffs that Tsukasa created when he sliced her hair.

“All done!” Taiju says. “Um, are you sure that’s all I need to do? I remember my mom used to get her hair cut in waves, or layers, or something.”

“Well, that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” Yuzuriha nods. “But it’s the stone world, and nobody really cares all that much, do they?”

“But…” Taiju trails off, though the unspoken _you do_ lingers in the air. 

“I think you had a point when you suggested that I’m adjusting. Really, I don’t think it’s just a hair thing.” Yuzuriha looks down at her hands, covered in glue and blisters, as Taiju puts away the shears. “I… Taiju, do you think we’ll be ok?”

Taiju understands the message, though they can’t speak with full freedom anymore since Ukyo’s revival. “Yes.” He states confidently. “Our leader will find a way.” And he knows that his speech, which is so different from his typical tone that it might have caused suspicion by itself, but he also knows that Yuzuriha understands his meaning.

“Yeah, I trust him.” Yuzuriha smiles, and runs a hand through her hair. She giggles. “Taiju, you missed a lot of loose bits!” 

Taiju flushes again, embarrassed. “Sorry! I can get someone else if you want, or—”

“Don’t worry about it, Taiju!” Yuzuriha looks at the water basin in her workshop. “It’s not very easy to get a perfect stitch every time, and I’m more than a little used to covering up some mistakes! Though, I don’t think I mind my hair as much anymore.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t lying when I said that this was much easier to wash, and it also doesn’t get caught on trees, and it’s not falling in my face during work…” she smiles, fully this time. “How about this: when humanity gets revived, I’ll grow my hair back out to mark our success!”

“If you want to!” Taiju says. “You can do whatever you want! Who knows, maybe you’ll get used to this by then?”

Yuzuriha pauses to think, “It feels like I never will. But now I am the short-haired-stone-world Yuzuriha, and maybe I’ll like her better than the long-haired-modern-world Yuzuriha?”

“I like them both just fine.” Taiju blurts, then realizes what he just said. “Because we’re friends! Very close friends! And I appreciate you a lot because of your skills and wonderful personality!”

“Yeah, you’re right. I _am_ a craftsman, after all, and I don’t think there’s any fabric that I can’t work with. I don’t see why that shouldn’t be the same for hair!” She takes a nearby piece of fabric, ties it into a flower shape, and pins it in her hair. “See? No problem.”

Taiju blushes, because Yuzuriha was adorable and everyone likes her a lot, Taiju included. “So… you won’t be needing any braiding?”

“Don’t worry about me, Taiju.” Yuzuriha says. “Didn’t you also have something important to do after we save the world?”

Taiju nearly trips on a non-existent rock. “Well then, when you see our work being put to good use—when humanity gets saved—I’ll tell you the thing I’ve been wanting to say, just like I promised before! And by then, I don’t think you’ll mind how you look at all!”

They look into each others eyes, understanding passing between them without any words exchanged. They shake hands in agreement, and wait eagerly for their other best friend to save the world.

**Author's Note:**

> There it is! Let me know what you think, what you liked, what you hated, etc. etc.! I love feedback!
> 
> Also, hit me up on [Tumblr](https://voicelesswaves.tumblr.com/) where I don't do anything except reblog stuff from current fandoms and rant about how much I love characters/shows.


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